5:

Minneapolis Charges Four Men in Shooting of Jamar Clark Protesters

Four men have been charged for their involvement in a shooting of five Black Lives Matter demonstrators who were rallying against the police killing of unarmed black man Jamar Clark in a Minneapolis suburb — the latest flashpoint in a controversial debate in the United States over excessive force and discriminatory policing.

Eight days after Clark’s death, the men wore masks and were armed as they crashed a vigil for him that was being held outside a police station in the suburb of Bloomington. After clashing with members of the crowd, the men allegedly attacked a group of protesters and shots were fired. None of the five demonstrators who were wounded, each of whom were black, received life-threatening injuries.

Authorities on Monday charged the person who allegedly fired the shots, 23-year-old Allen Lawrence Scarsella, with five counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of second-degree rioting with a dangerous weapon. Prosecutors said that he had admitted to opening fire at the event. He is currently being held on $500,000 bail.

Vice News

4:

US to deploy special forces in Iraq

United States Defence Secretary Ashton Carter has said the US will deploy “specialised” troops to Iraq to help fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) group.

Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, the Pentagon chief said that a “specialised expeditionary targeting force” was being deployed to help Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

“In full coordination with the government of Iraq, we’re deploying a specialised expeditionary targeting force to assist Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces and to put even more pressure on ISIL,” Carter said on Tuesday.

Aljazeera

3:

Fossil fuels are the new cigarettes

Deliberately, knowingly, destroying the stable climate on which our civilisation depends, is insane.

In the early 1990s I needed a job and found myself working for a year and a half on the assembly line at Mitsubishi in Adelaide. I put on the right front door lock for a few months, then moved to the left front headlight. Smoked a packet a day at my workstation. If you own a Mitsi Magna from that period there is a good chance that I had a part in putting it together. If it doesn’t work it could be my fault!

It was a pretty boring job. You’d spend months doing precisely the same set of movements, every three minutes, all day long, over and over again. The assembly line only ever stopped if there was a malfunction – which would be met by cheers of delight by 4000 guys (and a handful of women)! It was honest work – though deliberate sabotage and drug taking were common forms of entertainment to break the monotony. There were thousands of us at that plant and many thousands employed in the feeder factories around it. 

The whole car industry was premised on the internal combustion engine, which in turn was premised on burning cheap oil.

Back then none of us knew anything much about climate change. We were happy to have a pay check each fortnight, even if the work itself was dull and injuries were common. My father worked at times in the coal fields of Queensland, other family members worked in gas and related industries. We were factory workers, fitter and turners, mechanical engineers, road builders. We built things and people like us made the world what it is today. There is no shame in that, because we were blissfully unaware that the industries in which we all worked were threatening the very life support system of planet earth. But they were, and they are, and now we know it.

The science is unequivocal, as the International Energy Agency says: if we want to avoid dangerous climate change we cannot afford to burn even half of the fossil fuels already discovered. Not even half. If we can’t burn what’s already discovered, why the hell are we searching for more oil?

Greenpeace

2:

Inside Saudi Arabia’s Campaign to Charm American Policymakers and Journalists

Soon after launching a brutal air and ground assault in Yemen, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia began devoting significant resources to a sophisticated public relations blitz in Washington, D.C.

The PR campaign is designed to maintain close ties with the U.S. even as the Saudi-led military incursion into the poorest Arab nation in the Middle East has killed nearly 6,000 people, almost half of them civilians.

Elements of the charm offensive include the launch of a pro-Saudi Arabia media portal operated by high-profile Republican campaign consultants; a special English-language website devoted to putting a positive spin on the latest developments in the Yemen war; glitzy dinners with American political and business elites; and a non-stop push to sway reporters and policymakers.

The Intercept

1: Syria airstrikes: Corbyn heads for showdown with shadow cabinet

Jeremy Corbyn is heading for a showdown with his shadow cabinet over his opposition to military action in Syria, as the boss of Britain’s biggest union warned that MPs who continue to show him a lack of respect are writing their political obituaries.

The Labour leader is facing a rebellion among his senior colleagues, with the shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn, the deputy leader Tom Watson, the shadow lord chancellorCharles Falconer and the shadow education secretary Lucy Powell minded to support extending airstrikes against Islamic State.

They will gather for a crucial shadow cabinet meeting on Monday, at which it will be settled whether Labour can collectively come to a decision on military action or whether they will have to hold a free vote allowing MPs to go with their conscience.

If Corbyn decides to whip his party against military action, it becomes more likely that Downing Street will not proceed with a vote as Cameron has said he wants a clear majority of the House of Commons in favour of airstrikes.

The Guardian